Angel
by tashasfic
Summary: Rainy mornings and photographs. Set in PostEvoverse.


**Angel**

Author's Note: This started out as a Christmas fanfic-gift for Jen1703, aka the littlesortaredheadedgirl, author of "Snow", "Wonderwall" and other such amazing fanfictions. It was posted (horrendously late) in my LJ and because she said so (Hey, it's her gift ;), it's being re-posted on It's a little different from my other fanfics – be warned.

This is set in Post-Evoverse.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men.

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The sunlight streamed through the chink in the curtains, creating a narrow pathway of light. 

He turned over to find that she was missing. His eyes opened in momentary confusion, before he heard the soft pitter-patter of water coming from the bathroom, which was only a slighter shade louder than the gentle drizzling against his windowsill.

He frowned as he turned over on his side to face the large glass doors, leading out to the balcony. He hated the rain. It was always so cold; like taking a cold shower when he wanted to soar. Cold showers just weren't his style.

This was a day for curling up in bed with a tub of Belgian Chocolate Ice-cream and a good Nicole Kidman movie, or better yet, another red-head he knew.

He smiled at the photograph on his nightstand, as the running water in the bathroom stopped. In a large, antique, silver frame – complete with family crest – was the photograph of a woman, looking more like a girl, in an oversized, yellow, cotton nightshirt, her eyes barely open, squinting in the morning sunlight. Her masses of red hair hung in a loose mess about her shoulders, making her face look more round than heart shaped. Her long legs were curled close, her head pillowed on one arm. He'd taken it himself – the only photograph he'd ever managed to take, without his unfortunate thumb getting in the way.

He loved the picture; she hated it.

She saw in it that part of herself which she hid from the world – the little girl trying to play at being a self-possessed adult. He saw her just as he saw her every morning – a gentle vulnerability that hadn't yet woken up enough to put on its all-knowing mask.

Every morning she'd put the picture at the bottom of the drawer in his nightstand and every night, he'd take it back out. She'd tried to make him get rid of it, using every tactic she knew, short of throwing it away herself; or at the very least, put it in an album where no one would see it. He'd refused. She'd threatened to tell the school of the daisy-patterned boxer shorts he wore to sleep. He'd laughed, kissed her and said that the boys of the school were more interested in knowing what her underwear looked like than his.

The bathroom door opened and she padded out, clad in her fluffy white bathrobe, her wet hair catching the one stray beam of sunlight, which was streaming through the window, despite the rain. The light caused a strange halo-effect about her head.

"Hey Angel," he said softly, calling out to her.

A playful smile crossed her lips as she walked over to his side of the bed, to perch herself next to his reclining form.

"Shouldn't I be calling you that?"

"Wings are only physical," as he brought a hand up to touch one of the limp but thick strands of her wet hair, the water droplets still glistening on top.

"So are halos," she replied, catching his thoughts.

"You're beautiful," he told her simply, dismissing their earlier comments.

"Is blindness a part of your mutation? My hair currently resembles something the cat dragged in," she said, though a slight flush tinged her cheeks at his words.

She lifted the frame and opening the draw, slipped it in, away from the prying eyes of whoever happened to enter the room later that day.

He watched her before replying, "Love is blind."

She nudged him inwards, so that there was enough space on the bed for her to pull her legs up and lie down next to him.

"Then how come you criticize my tennis every chance you get?"

"That's because you hit like a girl."

"I _am_ a girl," she protested as she snuggled closer towards his chest. "I'd hoped you noticed that by now."

He grinned back, "It was the first thing I noticed."

She dropped a light kiss on his lips before getting up.

"Don't go," he said mournfully, forcing the corners of his mouth down in an exaggerated pout.

"I have to dry my hair. I'm wetting your pillow."

"I don't mind," he protested, drawing her towards him.

"You will when I catch a cold tomorrow and order a lifetime supply of sweet-corn chicken soup from that take-away gourmet place on your account."

He shrugged, dropping a chaste kiss on her forehead, "Whoever said that lying with angels was easy?"

She cocked her head onto one said and looked up at him.  
"It's not that hard," she replied as she reached over his neck to lightly caress one of the pearly white feathers that spouted from his back, causing him to shudder involuntarily at her touch.

"I know."

"It's raining," she commented, as if noticing for the first time, which she probably was, as he very well knew. She was strangely oblivious to what was going on around her at times, living more in her own head than many people realized.

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do today?"

"Stay in bed."

"Lucky," she murmured against his bare chest.

"You?"

"I have to go. I promised Hank I'd help him play mad scientist."

He rested his chin atop her head and smiled, holding her close.

"I have to dry my hair," she said again, pulling away from his arms and walking over to her dressing table to where the hair dryer was plugged in. He watched her from the bed; the halo now fading, white robe beginning to slip off one shoulder.

She caught his eye in the mirror as she started the dryer. She smiled at his piercing sapphire eyes, locked on the mirrored image of her emerald ones. The blond hair, the well-chiseled jaw line and the fountain of feathers that erupted from beneath his shoulder blades reflected, as if calling her to come back to him and the comfortable warmth of the duvet and his arms.

"Hey Angel," she said to him, echoing his earlier words.

The purr of the hairdryer mixed in with the gentle tap-tapping of water droplets on the balcony. The picture in the mirror twisted in a blend of a peculiar dreamlike confusion of color. The sunbeam cracked into a harsh spread of light that bathed the blood-ruby tone of her flying hair.

He blinked twice, opening his eyes wide. Drenched in sweat, he sat upright, his breathing heavy and labored, as he looked out at the rain pouring down in the darkness. He glanced over at his clock and the eerie green glowing figures of 4:45 glared back at him in the darkness. He looked over at the outline of the framed photograph, just visible in the darkness. It remained in the place he'd last put it. The space next to him remained as it had been for the past one week – empty.

Phoenixes rose out of the fire; they didn't sleep with angels.

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Feedback is, as always, loved and appreciated. 


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